Science or starvation

At the end of the month, a group of protestors plan to descend upon a field in Hertfordshire and ‘decontaminate’ (i.e. destroy) a field of genetically modified wheat. The activists, from an organisation called Take the Flour Back, claim to be saving Britain from a deadly menace. In reality, they are threatening not only to undo decades of publicly funded research but destroy one of the best hopes we have of avoiding catastrophic famines.

Those opposing transgenic technology have been given an easy ride by the media for the past 20 years. But there is growing anger among scientists and even some formerly anti-GM green activists that a technology that may be the only real hope of feeding the growing world population is being stymied in the name of ‘purity’ — a nonsensical idea in a world which already depends on intensive, industrialised agriculture to feed itself.

This planned protest is against a strain of wheat that has been genetically modified to create its own aphid repellent, a chemical that smells like mint.